Revelation

The word Revelation, means to lift the veil, as to reveal what is hidden or not known to everyone.  Here a few things that have been on my mind and everyone should know:

1. Calories.  Calories, are not that real, just like Time, it is merely a unit of measure so as it is, it doesn't exist.  Now, the measurement does exist and if you are trying to live healthy or even trying to lose weight, watching calories is one of the ways that this can happen.  This is how it works: 1 pound of human fat, is made up of 3,500 calories.  Also, if you eat or ingest, less calories than you spend, your body has to find energy for those extra calories you are spending and thus, pulls the calories from your body; ie. your fat.  So, you lose weight.  Now, sitting behind a desk all day, working at a computer, probably only burns about 1.7 calories a minute, because your body really isn't doing anything too active. So, if you sit for 4 hours, then you burned 1.7 *60 * 4=408 calories. On some commercials, they show a woman having a special shake for breakfast at her desk, then a salad, so she only consumes a mere 200 calories or so.  This means that her body has to pull on its fat reserve, and burn 208 calories. That means that the woman just lost about 2 ounces of weight.

Now, this doesn't seem much, not counting what she does out of work, assuming her night activities cancel out her food intake, but in a work week, of only 4 hours of work and two 100 calorie meals, she comes down almost a pound.  Again, this is simple.  Now, let's say that the woman, takes in 500 calories all day, works behind a desk for 7 hours, runs on a treadmill for a combined 2 hours, and does some walking around doing general home activities.  Using this site: http://caloriecount.about.com/activities-sports-ac15  The woman would burn 1.7 calories a minute at her desk, 9 calories a minute by running and 2.8 calories a minute doing household chores.  So, we have a 7 hour work day at 714 calories burned, then 2 hours of running at 1,080 calories burned and then an hour of housework at 168 calories for a total of 1,962 calories burned.  If that woman, in this case, still only had 500 calories all day, then she would burn 1,462 calories out of her fat supply.   In a 5 day work week, that would be 7,310 calories or two pounds of fat.

2. Pride and jealousy: When a person has mastered what they think is what they want, then they become proud of their work.  This is pride and not in a bad way because in any job you want to be proud of what you can accomplish.  When I made fruit caviar for the first time using sodium alginate and calcium chloride, I was very proud of myself, for instance, as others have problems doing so. After watching the second season of Top Chef Masters, my wife and I came to the conclusion that we like this show better than the others.  The reason is unlike the regular show, where nobodies fight and compete against each other to become a high ranked chef, this show is already filled with high ranked chefs.  They are competitive, but in a friendly way, like playing a game with your wife, you don't feel bad if she beats you, but you will not just give-up and let her win either.  I love the comrade-ary that these chefs have, sharing ingredients and items and joking with each other.  Sure, they all want to win and are sad when they are kicked off, but they are doing this for fun and for charity. I guess if I used a different metaphor, it would be like a group of the best Baseball players, like the All Star game. Well, that's not a good example, really, as in the show, the chefs are still humbled by each other.  Rick Moonen, who is probably one of the best chefs on the show, still comments on how one of his fellow chefs is better than he: Jonathon Waxman.  Yet in the same way, you can hear Jonathon tell the viewers how Rick is better than he in things as well.

I am not a professional chef and I know that some housewives are better cooks than I, so I am still humble at that.  However, I know that there is at least one chef, Anthony Bourdain for example, who can't bake anything and I'm sure that he would love my chocolate chip cookies, or my giant cinnamon roll or something like that. So, to have a chef, that is obviously a master at what he does, tell you that you do something better than they do is a bit of humility that I have seen chefs do.  Maybe one day, I will get a chance to have some famous chefs eat my food and experience this first hand.   

 3. Anyone can cook: just like the chef in Ratatouille, I believe that anyone can cook.  No matter who you are, buy some ingredients and cook.  It is so easy.  Do you need cooking classes or a fancy French school? No, not really.  Cooking classes or schools don't teach you recipes, they teach you techniques.  You can learn techniques on your own.  Did your mother or your grandmother go to cooking school?  No? Then how did they become good cooks?  Practice.  When I was working on my degree in Holistic Nutrition, there were some cooking textbooks on techniques of healthy eating and preparing of foods.  Instructions on how to prepare things like cooked quinoa or cactus leaf, but nothing that one couldn't learn for themselves. 

If you don't believe me, think of something you like, start off with a protein, like beef, chicken, fish or pork, for instance, and then think of how you want it.  Do you want it boiled, baked, grilled, saute'ed or steamed?  Then what type of flavoring to you like, spicy or savory?  Then what type of ethnic culinary techniques should we use?  Do you want some spicy, Asian inspired beef dish or a home style, southern baked chicken?  If you can do this yourself, do it.  If you need help, contact me: tastymagazine@gmail.com